


Cooler Than Me

by thornmallow



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Hipster Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:31:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thornmallow/pseuds/thornmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hipster Loki has an ugly crush on Sif.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooler Than Me

They stand in the apartment’s kitchen, which is really just a patch of tile and countertops adjacent to the carpeted den. The incredible noise from the couch, as well as the occupants’ general enthrallment with their efforts to virtually shoot each other to death, affords some privacy for Loki and Sif’s conversation.

Open pizza boxes cover the sink, along with six-packs of beer, a stack of plates, and a few unmanly and unused napkins.

Sif’s elegant fingers brush against the sole closed box, the one smaller and buried beneath the others. Loki purses his lips as she deftly frees the box from the stack; he wants to leave quickly, the scent of greasy meat and her perfume make him queasy. But moments like this are rare, so he waits until she’s reached for a slice before he, as usual, completely ruins everything.

“That’s mine,” he blurts.

She glances up at him, pulls back slightly. “Oh?”

Heat rushes to his cheeks. “If you’ll notice, it’s not encrusted with bits of animal carcass.”

“Well then,” Sif says, with a smirk that suggests otherwise, “My humblest apologies.”

Loki grits his teeth. Sif infuriates him. She patronizes him, she dismisses him. She strides around the apartment that he shares with his brother in tight jeans, with red lips and hair so dark and thick, like midnight in motion, glossy as a raven’s feather and just as mocking.

If she were stupid, he could manage; he could write her off as another limb of the shambling fool that was Asgard University’s student body. But she is not stupid. She is as sharp as any knife in his drawer, and he’s reaching his breaking point.

“Have some,” he muttters. “I don’t care.”

She shrugs, helping herself to a slice of pepperoni. “I don’t want any. I was just curious for a moment, that’s all.”

“Hey, Sif!” Thor hollers from the couch. “Come on, we’re dying over here! Literally being slaughtered to death.”

“We need your delicate precision,” Fandral adds. “And I wouldn’t mind another beer, either.”

She rolls her eyes and takes two silver cans from the pack on the sink. Eying Loki, she says, “Joining us?”

He slinks behind her. “No.”

“Emerging only to feed, huh?” she says. “Should have known.”

“Siiiif,” Thor’s voice has a definite whine to it. “They’re camping us. Help!”

Loki loads a paper plate with a gooey slice of cheese and vegetable pizza. As he appears to examine the red onions embedded in the dough, he says, “What do you see in him?”

Sif does not immediately reply, and when Loki meets her gaze he is satisfied that she looks at least mildly taken aback.

“Why do you ask?” she retorts, fast on the recovery.

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Momentarily curious.”

“Tch.” Sif turns away from Loki. She carries her plate and the beers back to the knot of ridiculous masculinity on the couch, which unravels just enough to let her squeeze in.

Volstagg tosses her a controller, and the cacophony of bullet noises issuing from the TV worsens.

“Boom! Headshot!” Thor cries, and begins rapidly mashing buttons on his controller. “Nice, Sif. Hey, have you got a dress picked out for the Winter Formal yet?”

“No,” Sif replies, attention fixed on the game. “No one has asked me to go yet.”

“What? I thought it was you and me.”

“Possibly. If you ask me.”

“Aw, jeez, Sif.”

“Play the next match against me,” Sif says. “I’ll accept your invitation if you win.”

Thor laughs and slings an arm around her shoulders. “Sure, babe, whatever.”

Loki, having seen enough, hurries back to his room.

—-

“Dude,” Thor says. “I’m in serious trouble.”

He’s dressed well, in a crisp, well-tailored tux with winking diamond cuff-links and a crimson tie; Loki has just finished arranging both of these accessories for his clueless brother, and he sighs wearily at the news of yet another problem.

“What, Thor? Sif and your passel of cronies will be here any minute.”

“A corsage, man! I don’t have one. It totally slipped my mind.”

Loki rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. “It probably sloshed out of you this morning, along with everything you drank last night.”

“Yeah,” Thor replies mournfully. “That happens to a lot of my ideas.”

Five insistent knocks pound their front door, and Volstagg’s voice booms from outside. “Attend to us, sirrah! For, verily, our balls are freezing off.”

Loki groans. “What makes you think I care about this?”

“Because you love me and want me to be happy?” Thor tries hopefully. “And if I don’t have a corsage, I’ll look like a huge jackass?”

“It’s going to take more than flowers to help you there,” Loki says.

He draws sigils in the air as he speaks, casting a rune of conjuration. Thor observes with the appropriate level of awe and gratitude, which encourages Loki; normally Thor regards spellcraft as so much muttering and finger-wiggling, meant to beguile and distract, and not nearly as effective as a hammer to the face.

But whenever blunt force trauma can’t solve his problems, Thor comes running to Loki.

As the rune fades in the air, a rose takes shape in its place. Formed of translucent ice, its stiff, perfectly shaped petals shimmer; its stem is twined around a black wristband set with gleaming sapphires.

“Don’t tell her where you got it,” Loki says. “Or if you do, lie.”

“Okay,” Thor says doubtfully. “I think she might guess, though.”

“Then deny it,” Loki says.

Their door starts to splinter from the continued assault of Volstagg and company.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?” I could have found you a date, dude.”

“Anyone you found would be the kind of girl who wants to date you, Thor, not me.”

“Sure,” Thor says. “I’m like pizza, man, everyone wants a piece. But I could find a chick who has, like, a secret fetish for sushi, too.”

Loki’s brother is the world’s most well-meaning douchebag.

“Or vegetarian,” Loki mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just get out of here, before your idiot friends break down the goddamn door.”

“All right, all right!” Thor takes the rose gingerly and carries it out into the corridor. Loki waits until he hears all the voices soften and then disappear into silence; then he rushes to the kitchen. He rinses a clean cup as he stares out of the window behind the sink; Thor and the others are meandering down the sidewalk, talking and laughing.

Sif holds her wrist to the moonlight, and the corsage glitters; the ice rose matches well with her black, sequined gown. She glances towards the apartment, but Loki’s head is down; he forces interest in the spotless cup. There’s nothing on his mind except the hem of Sif’s dress, brushing against her thighs, aglow from the illumination of his enchanted rose.

—

The dance is nearly over when she spots him. He’s loitering against a non-descript section of the wall, not in proximity to anything that might attract attention, such as a bathroom or a punch bowl. He hasn’t been there long; only about a half hour or so, but for all Sif knows, Loki has been furtively watching her this whole evening. She has a look on her face as she approaches that suggests this to be her thought process, but Loki doesn’t mind. 

He has always liked to observe, to examine a thing from the outside, or to exist secretly, imperceptibly within it. Cast in this role, Loki massages the reality of his position; he can imagine that he is above those he watches, rather than simply excluded from them.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sif says.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t,” Loki replies.

He wears skinny, dark jeans and a tight t-shirt with a tuxedo pattern printed on the front and back; Sif physically restrains her eyes from rolling when she realizes this. She has to admit, though, that the clothes conform nicely to his lanky limbs and wiry muscles.

“You’re pretty much completely ridiculous,” she says. “You know that, right?”

Loki glances at Thor, who’s offering a drink and a grin to a petite brunette that Loki recognizes from his Physics course. “It’s a family trait.”

Sif follows the line of Loki’s gaze and then grabs him without warning, pulling him to the edge of the crowded dance floor.

“Hey—”

“I destroyed him fifteen times,” Sif says. “He won the sixteenth match out of sheer luck.”

“Impressive,” Loki says. “And you came here with him entirely out of pity?”

“I don’t know,” Sif says. “Why did you make the rose?”

“Thor was supposed to lie about that.”

“I didn’t ask him.”

Loki maintains a reserved expression. They dance slowly; her hands resting on his shoulders and his arms looped around her waist.

“My brother came to me in desperation,” Loki says. “What could I do?”

“You usually laugh in his face,” Sif says.

“Well, perhaps I took pity as well.”

Sif sets her chin on his shoulder, and he inhales sharply. She murmurs, “I figured it was something like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the ridiculous lyrics of the ridiculous quoted pop song …
> 
> If I could write you a song to make you fall in love
> 
> I’d already have you up under my arm
> 
> I used up all of my tricks
> 
> I hope that you like this
> 
> But you probably won’t
> 
> You think you’re cooler than me


End file.
